The lead architect for the project is Foster + Partners, the celebrated English firm doing the doughnut-shaped Apple headquarters in Cupertino. If built as now envisioned, the San Francisco tower would be equally futuristic, with brawny structural columns slicing across a mid-block space 80 yards wide. Except for the elevator lobbies at the rear of the plaza the tower would begin 70 feet in the air, clad in glass and held in place by diagonal columns forming giant X’s along the outer walls.

“The way you walk along and through that building will be different from anything that you’ve encountered before,” promised design director Stefan Behling of Foster + Partners, which is working on the project with local architecture firm Heller Manus. “The goal is that it will be fully public, open to the air. … A space of this scale has the potential to make people go ‘wow.’ “

Above the plaza, the lower 20 or so stories of the 50 First Street building would be 240 feet wide, “equal to the broad side of the slab towers at Embarcadero Center.” The tower would then taper so that the top is 25 percent more narrow than the bottom in order to meet planning requirements and “[keep] the building from casting excessive shadows on nearby public parks.”

To some people, ANY improvement will do nothing but attract the homeless. No public space is allowed. We know…San Francisco has a homeless problem. Mindless bleats like this one contribute nothing to the discussion.

Suggestion: Move to Brazil. Very little public space and you can exist in private enclaves protected by armed private police

Travel & Leisure bumped SF down and it is no longer a top international destination because tourists are complaining about the homeless, dying drug addicts on the streets, and the feces and urine smells. The homeless issue is contributing to a decline in the quality of life and tourist dollars in SF. It should be brought up indefinitely until the problem is solved.

I agree with Mark, the plaza will simply be another magnet to for the homeless to get out of the wind and rain. I’ve lived here long enough to know they aren’t going away and San Francisco has no control or will to define public decorum.

Have you ever seen homeless in the 101 California Plaza? What about the plazas on top of the Embarcadero Center Retail? The Crocker Galleria rooftop garden? I have never seen homeless in any of these spaces or others like them. Yes, they are open to the public, but they are part of private developments, just like this plaza will be. The security guards from the associated buildings keep the riff-raff out. This plaza is publicly accessible, but not a public park.

You are correct. Taking 101 Cal as the example, walk along the California Street sidewalk. Be sure to stay in the public walkway area between the street and the terraced planters. Look down and find the brass plates embedded into the granite. They state something like “permission to use by the public, but with conditions”. I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but hopefully you get the point. The vagrants are kept away.

Sorry, but that’s not accurate. 101 Cal is a lot more accessible than this one will be – this one will at least have the girders as a mental “fence” around the space, and the building above. 101 Cal is a plaza, period.

It would be nice to see Foster build in SF after decades of this city’s arch mediocrity.

Hope this developer is not in over his head, last project was the SOMA grand yawner. it a lot easier to hire architect for nice renderings than develop a building. a la the former “developer” david choo who hoped to buy his way in with Renzo Piano.

This would be the most challenging tower ever constructed in SF, technically and financially (and maybe in terms of getting street closing / covering approval) Here’s hoping he has the resources and intelligence and “”””s to do it. Wouldn’t bet on the result. This couldn’t possibly end up Heller Manus without Foster, [could] it?

in regards to the homeless concerns- wouldn’t this be private property? even if it was a PoPo it would still be private property so couldn’t the building have some sort of security personnel to make sure people don’t set up camp or anything in there?

I’m pretty sure there was one hold out who wouldn’t sell. I know that was the case with the Piano project anyways. So, better to keep 3 old buildings to provide context, rhythm and scale vs a single stand alone.

First, these renderings are at such a great distance, there really is not all that much detail to determine anything other than bulk? In addition, how about forgetting/dropping the 70′ (height) plaza at the base and slimming down the tower by shifting some of the offices to that area. The public plaza at the base will be totally surrounded by other high-rises and their shadows. Therefore, the odds are it will be a cold and windy space.

Also, why not have a tall tower in San Francisco with an observation deck at the top for a change?…like New York and Chicago.

I like the idea of an observation deck… tired of sneaking tourist friends into the Mandarin to go up to the sky bridge, LOL.

But disagree re: floor plates – though this building does threaten to be a behemoth, there are plenty of tenants who want large floor plates. We’re buildiing lots of slim towers; we need some variety for the rental market.